Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1803-1882 - A central figure of American Transcendentalism. Also an author and a philosophy. Wrote Nature and self-reliance.

Henry David Thoreau - 1817-1862 - An influental American Transcendentalist who capured his personal beliefs in 'Civil Disobediance' and Walden. Thoreau lived most of his life in Concord, Massachusets.

Margaret Fuller - 1810-1850 - The American Transcendentalist and radical Feminist who edited 'The Dial'. She is well known for writing A Woman in the Nineteenth Century.

Amos Bronson Alcott - 1799-1888 - A teacher and philosopher who first taught that learning should be stimulated by pleasure and imagination instead of discipline. He introduced Physical Education, Art, Music, and Nature Study to young students at a time when such things were not a part of the standard curriculum.

Theodore Parker - 1810-1860 - An American Theologian and prominent Unitarian Minister. He argued with the Unitarians using the statutes of Alcott's beliefs about human learning and understanding. This widened the theology gap between Unitarianism and Transcendentalism.

George Ripley - 1802-1880 - An American minister and scholar who directed the utopia community at Brook Farm, and wrote Discourses on the Philosophy of Religion. He also edited 'The New York Daily Tribune'.

William Ellery Channing - 1810-1884 - Unitarian Minister, Editor, and Social Activist. He also established the 'Religious Union of Associationists' in Boston, 1847.

Origins of the Transcendentalist Movement

The transcendentalist Movement is not an actual break of philosophy, but rather a complete evolution from the rocky constraints of calvinism. Transcendentalism is defined as a strange mixture of Platonism, Romanticism, Hinduism, and Deism. One may wonder how any of these philosophies relate to the strict rigor of Calvinism.

This link is traced back to Jonothan Edwards, who states that the things of this world reflect higher, transcendent truths. This is a vital paradigm shift because the idea that the material world reflects the spiritual world is the very core of the transcendentalist philosophy. However, transcendentalism would not be what it is if not for both the 'Calvinist Doctrine of Original Sin' and the spiritualization of nature.

The integration of these three beliefs is important because it pinpoints the definite shift from a Calvinist philosophy to a Transcendentalist one. The shift appears sudden at a glance because all three factors must be present. However, this period was gradually focusing on the three beliefs reaching a higher level of individuality and social acceptance.

Influence of the Transcendentalist Movement on Society

The influence that transcendentalism had on society was not excessive. The two basic ideas that were communicated directly to society by transcendentalism are a greater realization of personal beliefs and individualism, and an emphasis on the mind's ability to learn intuitively through its own means, rather than allowing knowledge to be endlessly pounded into it.

Transcendentalism extended society's understanding of the entire process of learning. It expanded on the idea of teaching the brain a process, so that that process could then be used to find the answers on its own. This is an extremely important breakthrough in education, but not effective as an immediate result of the movement.

Transcendentalism also helped to emphasize the ability of the human mind to think for itself. This was probably brought about by the recent infatuation with the democratic system. Although this radical individualism is a characteristic of transcendentalism, it is most likely just a by-product of the love of vote common throughout the early 1800s.